Volk

by David Nickle

  PRAISE FOR VOLK

  “David Nickle’s compelling Volk extends and expands upon his Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism…. It’s the latest contribution to what is emerging as one of the truly substantial bodies of weird fiction in the early twenty-first century, and further cements David Nickle’s reputation as one of the leaders of his generation of writers.” —John Langan, author of The Fisherman

  “A dazzling horror novel that’s unafraid to ask questions and leave some of them unanswered.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “With multiple engaging protagonists, a unique antagonist, and a well-realized pre-WWII European setting, Volk picks up the story of Juke but shifts its focus away from the literal monsters to the humans that try to control them. It’s a bold, but natural progression for the story, with an ending that hints at much more to come.” —Gordon B. White, Hellnotes

  “Volk is technically and intellectually very ambitious, and it succeeds on almost every level, including as good, intelligent entertainment.” —Paul StJohn Mackintosh, See the Elephant magazine

  “David Nickle’s sequel to his eugenicist novel Eutopia switches the action to 1930s Europe, but jumping to a different continent doesn’t mean the gruesome horror is about to diminish. Volk is a worthy book with plenty of secrets to unravel.” —Silvia Moreno-Garcia, World Fantasy Award–winning editor

  “David Nickle’s distinctive mastery of voluptuous horror makes for a sequel every bit as enthralling and disturbing as Eutopia.” —Molly Tanzer, author of Vermillion

  Volk

  A Novel of Radiant Abomination

  David Nickle

  “Parasitism is one of the gravest crimes in nature. It is a breach of the law of Evolution. Thou shalt evolve, thou shalt develop all thy faculties in full, thou shalt attain to the highest conceivable perfection of thy race—and so perfect thy race—this is the first and greatest commandment of Nature. But the parasite has no thought for its race, or for its perfection in any shape of form. It wants two things—food and shelter. How it gets them is of no moment.”

  —Henry Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 1883

  Dedicated to the memories of:

  Sara Simmons

  Helen Rykens

  and Liza Ordubegian

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Orlok

  Part I: The Inferno Conundrum

  Part II: The Decameron System

  Part III: The Elysium Deception

  Part IV: The Syncopation Gambit

  Part V: The Delirium Objective

  The Best of All Possible Worlds

  ORLOK

  “Was he beautiful?”

  As though he had just registered his own nakedness at that instant, Gottlieb blinked and covered himself.

  “Beautiful? No. He was compelling. Huge. Very muscular.”

  “And you were sexually attracted to him.”

  “Of course I was.”

  The doctor allowed a dozen beats of the metronome before he spoke the obvious: “He was not like you.”

  “No.”

  Gottlieb was grasping at his penis. The doctor made no attempt to disguise his observation of that fact and noted with satisfaction that Gottlieb didn’t seem to care. He was as guileless as a babe just then. Could a metronome tick triumphantly? The doctor let it, twice more.

  “Describe to me the ways he was like you.”

  Gottlieb drew a deep breath and turned to the windows. They were open a crack to clear the air from the morning’s session, and the sweet smell of apple blossoms wafted in. The doctor was used to the smell—this was a room in which he spent a great deal of time—but he noted it, along with the flaring of Gottlieb’s delicate nostrils.

  “How was he like you?” asked the doctor again.

  “I don’t really know,” said Gottlieb. “I didn’t know him for very long.”

  “Anything.”

  “All right. He was German like me. And he was my age.”

  “How old were you then?”

  The slightest frown. “Twenty-two.”

  The doctor looked again to the window. A conversation was drifting in along with the apple blossom scent. Two of the girls—Heidi and Anna? Yes. He recognized Anna’s lisp, and she and Heidi were inseparable. Ergo . . .

  They weren’t too distracting—they would barely register on the recording. If they lingered, or became silly, he would have to stand and shut the window, and risk disturbing Gottlieb. But the pair were on their way somewhere, and within four ticks of the metronome were gone. The doctor settled back.

  “His hair was brown,” said Gottlieb. “Like mine too.”

  Three ticks.

  “And he was homosexual,” said Gottlieb.

  Four more ticks now.

  “But not like me.”

  “Tell me how he is not like you.”

  “As to his homosexuality?”

  “If you like. Yes.”

  “He is a masculine force. He looks at me and causes me to feel as if . . . as if I am not. Not masculine.”

  The doctor smiled. The last time Gottlieb had spoken of this moment, he’d immediately denied his homosexuality. They were progressing very well, at least as measured against their stated objective of delving into Gottlieb’s neurosis. The doctor started to reach for a pencil where his breast pocket would have been, but stopped himself and settled his hands back in his lap. He spoke quietly, calmly, in rhythm. Like a lullaby. “He is looking at you now,” he said.

  Tick. Tick.

  Gottlieb flushed and, as his hand came away from his penis, the doctor was pleased to see it was flushed too.

  “In the beer hall, yes?” said the doctor.

  Gottlieb stretched his slender legs on the chaise longue, and his eyelids fluttered shut. A breeze from the window lifted the drapes, raising gooseflesh as it passed. The air in the beer hall would not have been so fresh as this alpine breath.

  “In the Bürgerbräukeller,” said Gottlieb.

  “What does it smell like?”

  “Many things. Food . . . there is a basket of schnitzel nearby. There is some smoke. I mean from tobacco. And the whole place stinks of old beer. Men have been drinking all day.”

  The doctor waited until it seemed as though Gottlieb might drift off to sleep, before prodding: “Where is he?”

  Gottlieb smiled. “Leaned against a pillar. By himself, across the hall from me. He is a very ugly man—his eyebrows meet in the middle of his forehead, so it seems he is scowling into his beer mug.”

  The doctor shifted in his chair. The towel he’d placed on the leather cushioning had moved, and in the warmth of the day the bare skin of his buttocks was sticking there. He fought to contain his discomfort, his growing impatience. The metronome ticked seven times more before Gottlieb was ready to continue.

  “My friends are sitting with me at one of the round tables in the middle of the great room. There is Gunther and Alex and Haydn. Gunther is getting fat, somehow. His hair is still blond, but is starting to go up front, and in a patch at his crown. Alex is a little fellow—smaller than me. His moustache is long, and covered in foam from his mug. Black hair. Haydn? Always licking his lips. No foam there. Otherwise handsome enough. He works in a warehouse by the Isar. Keeps him strong and from getting fat.

  “Are they properly my friends? Gunther maybe; we fought alongside in the War and he liked me well enough to have me at his wedding when it was done. Alex and Haydn were Gunther’s boyhood friends from Augsburg. They were good fellows and tolerated me, but they preferred to reminisce with Gunther about this or that from when they were all bachelors. I didn’t mind.

  “We are drinking a round of lagers and Gunther is telling his story about the end of the War—after Armistice, but just by a few days. It is a little true, but for the most par
t a lie; he talks about how we met a company of British soldiers in No Man’s Land. We shared our rations with them because they were so pitiable . . . nearly starving . . . literally begging for our aid.

  “Gunther tells it boastfully, so as to illustrate his honourable nature. I remember the night differently—that we were all cold and hungry, and we all ate our own rations. It was still a good night—we refrained from slaughtering one another, kept our insults to ourselves. But no one begged. There was no . . . undue generosity. Not a whiff of charity, from Gunther or any of us.

  “But I don’t correct his lie. We are all becoming a little drunk, and this lie is preferable to political talk. Or a brawl.

  “And yes. I am distracted.

  “What is he wearing? It is . . . a grey shirt, yes, open-necked over a white undershirt. He has a cap, but he is not wearing it. It is stuffed into the belt of his trousers. I don’t know what kind of trousers. Brown? Brown. A dark brown. I cannot see his boots, but later, I remember—

  “All right. In the moment I cannot see his boots. There is a table of men in front of him, I think they are veterans too—two of them have helmets from the War, on the table before them. They are emptying their mugs quickly, having a very serious talk. I cannot hear what they are saying. But he is smiling at it, looking from one to the other as they argue among themselves.

  “I imagine they are talking politics. Probably about the Weimar and the Jews, because of course later—

  “Quite right, doctor. In the moment. In the moment.

  “He looks up, and sees me looking. But he doesn’t seem surprised. I think he has known that I am looking at him for a long time. Maybe since I started. Maybe he saw me even before.

  “He grants me a little wink, then takes a deep drink from his mug. And he is gone.

  “Disappeared into thin air? No. There is a commotion around him—nothing serious. A gang of men arrive—more veterans, I think. They crowd into the discussion, grabbing the shoulders of the men in the midst of talk. One of them has a platter of sausages and sets it down on the table, and by the time they’ve moved out of the way, he is lost in the crowd.

  “Now Gunther claps me on the shoulder.

  “‘Hey, Markus,’ he says, ‘you look pale. Don’t tell me you’re done drinking.’

  “On the other side of me, Alex empties his cup and grins at me. His moustache is dripping beer.

  “I finish my drink. There is not much left anyway. ‘Another round?’ asks Gunther. It is his turn to buy. ‘Fine,’ I say, ‘but I need to return some of this, first.’

  “‘Don’t take too long,’ Gunther says. ‘Little Alex is thirsty. He’ll drink his and your beer too if you dawdle.’

  “I laugh at that and so does Haydn. Alex smiles, but I don’t think he likes being called little. Or maybe he sees through my ruse. Because yes, maybe it is a ruse. I don’t have to piss, or I don’t have to piss very much. I get up and go, all the same.

  “I cross the room. It feels as though the men here are looking at me as I go, but that is rot. Why would they? I become a little fearful, I admit, as I move through here, slip beneath the shadow of the balcony, past the pillars, thinking that I . . .

  “I . . .

  “I am outside now. In the beer garden. What is the weather? What kind of question is that? It is November. Just before six. It will get colder, much colder, but right now the air is pleasant enough—I can feel the gooseflesh on my arms, which are bare, but that is fine, because the cool air is just what I need. I have had too much to drink, maybe, after all. And part of it—a state of arousal, yes, that is part of it.

  “The wind gusts. It is coming from the southwest. A winter wind. From the mountains. The few that are outside getting air like me look for shelter from it, back in the hall. Not me. Not him either.

  “He is sitting on one of the tables, feet propped on the bench, spread apart, forearms resting on his knees. His forefingers and thumbs are rubbing together, as though to make warmth. His cap is on his head.

  “Oh—I can see his boots now. They are old army boots. Laced up high. He has tucked his trousers into them. He is looking right at me. I look away, but only for a moment, because I cannot look away for long.

  “‘You are a Jew?’ he asks me.

  “I tell him I am not.

  He points back at the hall. ‘Your friends. Jews?’

  “‘None of us are Jews.’

  “‘Are you certain?’ he asks. ‘Have you sucked all their uncircumcised cocks?’

  “How does that make me feel?

  “Fearful.

  “Angry.

  “And helpless.

  “And no, I do not care for any of those feelings. What sort would enjoy that? What a question. But I also know it for what it is: a crude flirtation, such as men make with one another. I despise this part, the beginning. But there is no other way.

  “I tell him a joke: that they are all too busy sucking one another’s cocks, and I must wait my turn. I laugh at it, my own joke, but he remains serious.

  “‘Come here.’ That is what he says, then turns one great hand up and beckons me over. He might mean it as a command. I take it as permission.

  “I am sitting on the bench where he is resting his feet, leaning back against the table where he is perched. He is saying something, but there’s some kind of commotion from the street. . . . It sounds like a flock of great birds taking off. But that can’t be right. . . . I cannot hear what he says because of it, whatever the sound is. His hand comes down on my shoulder and squeezes. He is looking down at me. I tell him my name, because maybe he was asking that. I think he was asking that.

  “‘Good enough,’ he says. ‘What town?’ I tell him. ‘Then what are you doing here in Munich?’ And I tell him about the book that I am writing. He wonders why I could not write that book at home, and I tell him some of my story. He doesn’t say anything to that, but his hand doesn’t leave my shoulder. Aah, his grip is so tight.

  “‘I sometimes write,’ he tells me, finally. ‘Is your book true?’ I tell him it is not true. It is a novel. ‘Writing books that are not true is easy,’ he says to me. ‘True books are more difficult.’

  “‘That is not my experience,’ I tell him. Fabrication is more difficult than just saying what’s so.

  “A group of men are walking past us, toward the beer hall. There are . . . maybe a dozen of them? Maybe less. They are dressed well. He loosens his grip on my shoulder, sits up as he looks over at them, but they don’t seem to pay us any heed. ‘Who are they?’ I ask.

  “‘Who knows?’ he says. ‘I don’t like them, though.’ He slides off the table then, and slaps my back.

  “‘Inside,’ he says. ‘Not good to be outdoors right now.’

  “We are walking back to the beer hall. He is opening another door than the one from which we came, an exterior door that goes directly to the cellars. We are at the top of a wooden staircase. There is one bare bulb lighting the way down, set in the wall. We are climbing down the stairs. I am first. He is . . .

  “He is . . .”

  Nearly sixty ticks of the metronome, and the doctor dared clear his throat. Gottlieb seemed to be dozing. But based on his experience, the doctor suspected something other: a phenomenon he had observed not infrequently, in the course of his work. In certain instances, the patient inhabited the memory so deeply that there would be no words for it. The patient might later recollect these deep fugues, might write those memories in a journal, might share that journal with a trusted psychotherapist. And that might be as near a psychotherapist would ever get to the nub of that deep, crucial memory.

  The only thing to do until the fugue resolved, in the doctor’s experience, was to wait.

  The doctor reached and lifted the needle from the Dictaphone. He set about replacing the cylinder, which was more than three-fourths finished. Then, as quietly as he could manage, he shut and fastened the windows. Before he did, he drew in a last breath of the valley and regarded the circle of smooth-skin
ned girls and boys, sunbathing by the riverbank. The doctor savoured the breath, imagining he was capturing a last whiff of their virility . . . their fecundity.

  From the chaise longue, Gottlieb gasped. The doctor didn’t need to look to confirm: He had ejaculated.

  “Herr Gottlieb,” whispered the doctor, after he had set the needle back on the fresh cylinder.

  Gottlieb’s naked torso twisted, pale droplets of semen distending into ghostly rivulets down his belly, and his eyelids fluttered over a gaze still focused elsewhere.

  “Tell me his name,” said the doctor.

  Gottlieb’s lips parted so his tongue could wet them, because they were very dry.

  “I cannot say now. I do not know it. He has not said it.

  “We are deep in the cellar. I am lying close along his flank. My head is resting in the crook of his shoulder, my nose pressed into the damp fabric of his undershirt. I can smell him, even as his taste is still fresh on my tongue. . . .

  “We are resting in the crook of two stacks of barrels. He has taken me to the darkest corner, past high stone arches and thick pillars. There is some light—from the far end of the cellar—and there is some sound . . . men talking, perhaps, at that end of the cellar . . . the noise of the beer hall above us? No. It is the scurrying feet of rats. That is what he says.

  “‘The true fathers of Munich,’ he says. ‘When those men are gone’—his hand leaves my shoulder to gesture upward, to the beer hall above us—‘the rats will hold a feast.’

  “‘Do you not think they are holding one now?’ I ask him, and finally he laughs at a jest I make.

  “‘It is true. I have never seen a starved rat. They have that advantage over us men: they will eat anything.’

  “He pushes me away from him, just enough that he can straighten against the wall. He kicks away our trousers, where they are balled at our feet. Then he asks me: ‘Do you know your blood type?’

  “I do not know it, and he scolds me. ‘If you find yourself in a hospital, needing a transfusion, you had better know. There is A, there is B, there is AB, and there is O. Mix it up, get the wrong blood in you . . . that’s it!’